Orlando Fringe review: 'The Monkey King'

Viet Nguyen provided insight into his Vietnamese heritage and an example of multiangle storytelling in "Reincarnation Soup" at the 2010 Fringe Festival. In "The Monkey King," he paints a bleaker picture of modern-day Vietnam -- but one that is no less absorbing as characters interact around the framework of the Chinese legend of The Monkey King.

Nguyen tells his story non-chronologically, but each narrative is intriguing in its own right and there's a feeling of satisfaction, tinged with sadness, when the story threads finally come together. That happens not in a big a-ha! moment, but in a gradually dawning evolution of how the characters -- an eager social worker, a downtrodden girl, a crafty old lady and an old man in a junkyard -- connect.

Different characters are effectively represented not only by changes in Nguyen's voice, but by different masks that add immensely to the atmosphere. There's a feeling of a grand tale being told, and this story within a legend pleasurably hits the big themes: Change, growth, fate and the pivotal decisions we all make.